Writer’s Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in writing for General Aviation News. We do accept freelance submissions for feature stories.

All news stories are handled in house, except in rare instances. If you would like to send us news tips, that would be great.

Queries for feature stories are preferred and will receive greater consideration than unsolicited manuscripts.

We prefer our writers to be pilots or in pursuit of their a pilot’s certificate.

Stories that work best for us are features on pilots and aircraft owners, restoration articles, Living With Your Plane articles, interesting destinations for aircraft owners/pilots, different ways pilots are using their planes (business, personal, charity, etc.), careers in GA, etc.

We don’t accept anything to do with airlines or military flying.

FORMAT

We prefer stories to be submitted via email, with the story pasted into the body of the email. Stories should be single spaced with no space between the paragraphs. Do not indent paragraphs. Also, do not double space between sentences.

Space is quite limited in our publication. We prefer stories to be between 700 and 1,000 words. Longer stories will be very difficult to schedule for publication.

In that vein, we also prefer short sentences. For example: If you are in the habit of using semi-colons, just put the idea into two sentences.

Put your name as you would like it to appear in a byline at the top of the story in all capitals:
example: By JANICE WOOD

Include your snail mail address in the email that accompanies the story. If the story is used, I will eventually need your Social Security Number for payment purposes. You can submit this to me in the email, or if you prefer, you can call me and give it to me in person or leave it on my voice mail: 800-426-8538.
Payment is made on the cover date (or closest business day).

COMPENSATION

We do not pay per word. Each story is negotiated separately. Fees start at $75 and increase as the complexity of the story increases. For example, pilot reports start at $250. However, it is quite uncommon for us to assign a pirep to a writer we are unfamiliar with. I would have to have a track record with the writer before assigning one.

All feature stories require art. Please obtain the art yourself and submit it with the manuscript. Please refer to the Photographer’s Guidelines for specific information on photos.

Be sure to get the mailing address of anyone in the story who would like to get extra copies of that issue. We send 8 copies straight from the printer. Include that information at the bottom of the email you send with the story and captions.

Obviously in the varied world that is GA there are going to be stories and circumstances that aren’t covered by these guidelines. Feel free to call or email me at any time to discuss ideas. I will endeavor to get back to you as soon as I can.

It is acceptable to email me with a story idea. If I’m interested in reviewing the story, I’ll let you know. Once I review it, I will try to give you an answer as to whether we’d like to publish it or not. If the answer is no, the most likely reason would be that the subject matter or style do not fit our publication. If the answer is yes, the story will go into a backlog and will be used as space is available.